London-based Clidive is the Heinke 2020 winner, thanks to its outstanding entry which documents 2019, their 50th year as a BSAC club.
Each year clubs are invited to enter the Heinke Trophy, BSAC’s premier award, which recognises the essential role clubs play in the success of BSAC diving. Participating clubs are asked to submit a report on their club year in order to demonstrate their successes and the role they have played in ‘furthering the interests of its members and of BSAC.’
Announcing Clidive as the 2020 Heinke Trophy winners, the judges commended the club on their report, which the panel called ‘an outstanding submission’. Clidive’s attention to detail, a well-organised training programme, commitment to moving all their members forward and an exciting diving and expedition schedule were all highlights of the winning entry.
Here, Clidive answer our questions on what made their Heinke 2020 a success:
What does the Heinke Trophy mean to your club?
The club has won the trophy twice before and those successes are a well-known part of our history, giving the club a boost each time and setting a standard to live up to. But you are only as good as your next game, so we knew at some point we would want to take it on again. The Heinke is a great way to push your club to achieve a little bit extra and is something Clidive will look to enter again, just not next year!
Why did you decide to enter?
In early 2018 we decided to put together a programme of activities for our 50th anniversary, which included a Heinke submission in 2020, based on our 2019 year. The Heinke entry gave us an extra focus for all the activities we planned for our anniversary year. The gauntlet was also thrown down by the previous generations of Clidive’s leaders to the current incumbents to give it a go, to see if we could emulate their success. And that’s the sort of challenge you can’t say no to!
Do you think that it being your club’s 50th year made the difference?
Absolutely. Having a theme gives the whole entry a focus and drives your planning and objectives for the club for at least one year, maybe more. For example, you don’t decide to put people through First Class Diver halfway through your submission year. We started that process at the beginning of 2018 with the intention of getting up to five of us completing it during 2019. Achieving four was fantastic and it was no accident this happened during our submission year.
How positive was the response from your members when you decided to submit an application?
Very positive. We needed people to volunteer to make all the activities we planned actually happen as well as people to provide information and contribute content to the submission. A wide range of members found themselves with responsibilities, often quite soon into their membership, which helped people get to know each other and uncovered all sorts of new skills that will benefit the club.
How did you allocate tasks and roles?
We appointed a Heinke co-ordinator to our committee to oversee the Heinke submission and many of the special projects such as the 50th anniversary events. We also appointed a diver development officer to build a comprehensive programme for existing divers that can now be used as a blueprint moving forward, and a theory training officer to reduce the load on the training officer. This spread all our planned activities and really contributed to our success.
What do you see as the main benefits of winning the Heinke Trophy?
With the strange year we are currently in, it is difficult to tell. We really think much of the benefit is actually planning and delivering the programme of activities that informed the submission. So many new people got involved in club activities over the course of 18 months that once it was all submitted, we were just happy to have gone through the process. It felt like a success already. If you win it is the cherry on top of the cake and a fantastic boost. But even if you don’t win, just going through the process is a great exercise.
What word of advice can you give other clubs when it comes to planning a Heinke submission?
It is a large project, but the best words of advice are to work through the BSAC submission guidelines logically to see what information you need or want to gather and who can help you gather it. Start early. Bringing it all together we used a much smaller group to apply design, editing and proof-reading to get a consistent presentation of all the information. This does take time - it took us about three months to pull it all together. An entry doesn't have to be super-glossy but meeting all the requirements and presenting them clearly is a must.
What are your three essential tips for completing a Heinke Trophy application?
- Address the application guidelines and organise your submission based on them.
- Have a strong theme or a project that makes your application stand out.
- Have someone on the committee dedicated to coordinating the application who can then lean on the committee for help when needed. One person cannot do it all but it’s good to have someone responsible overall.
If another club was considering entering the Heinke 2021, what would you say to them?
Go for it. 2020 is a strange year but there is a club out there who will have a great story to tell. If you haven’t already decided to make an entry, then start immediately. Or start planning now for 2022.
You can check out Clidive's Heinke entry below:
Could your club be Heinke 2021 winners?
For more information on the Heinke Trophy, its past winners and guidance on submitting a future Heinke Trophy report go to bsac.com/heinke.
